One of the fun things about horticulture and gardening in general is that if you want to
become a specialist in a particular plant, or plant type, or plant group, there's
any number of ways in which you can go. There are people who enjoy growing roses and day lilies
and iris and peonies, and all they do is grow a particular kind of plant.
There's also a group of people who just love and adore clematis, and clematis is one of those plants
that is really a nice plant to grow, it has a wide assortment, a wide variety of these things,
all kinds of colors, sizes, and shapes of clematis.
And one thing that's kind of frustrating for many people, especially first-time
gardeners, as they don't understand the clematis, even know they love them and they
like to grow them,
they can't, because there's some things that you have to understand about clematis.
And one of the things that you have to understand which I think really
baffles people
is this pruning issue. Clematis are broken down into three pruning groups:
group 1, group 2, and group 3. It all depends upon
where the particular flower buds are being formed
that bloom for that particular season. In a group 1 clematis,
the flower buds are formed and will flower on last year's wood, or the old stem,
that means very little pruning is done in the springtime
if you expect that thing to flower. Group 2
will flower on both last year's wood and
current season's wood, so what happens here is that you'll get some flowers early
in the season
and there when new growth comes on, flowers for later in the season, so here, we basically are
pruning a little light
pruning in the springtime to remove any dead material
and then after flowering, a little heavier pruning can be done to clean up the
plant so
you have an option here. A group 3 clematis
basically blooms all on new season's growth, and that's the clematis you
can take and prune extremely hard in the springtime
down to basically about a foot above the ground and what happens there's the fact
that now
what you're doing is cleaning up the plant an all new growth that's coming
up its flowering at a level which you can enjoy it.
If you did not prune a group three clematis, it will continue growing taller and
taller and taller and all the flowers be up here
with very little flower down here so, group one two or three. Now the other
thing that's really
sometimes frustrating for those of us that are in the question and answering
business is a personal call to say "how do I prune my clematis? "
The first thing we ask is, what kind of clematis do you have?
Long silence, because they don't know. So that gives
more of a credence to save the plant tag
that way you know the variety, the variety can be referenced to find out
what type of group the clematis is in. This is a particular one called Rebecca.
On the back of the tag it says prune according to group 2
guidelines. One over here
is a group 3 clematis. I wouldn't know that unless I looked the tag and looked at the variety
so again,
pay attention, and keep in mind the variety, keep track of the tag. The other thing about
clematis, is that when you get a clematis
it's a good idea to plant them deeper than they were grown in the container,
and what this does is help to basically get the clematis past a very common
problem call clematis wilt.
Clematis wilt is a foliar disease that eventually goes into the stem and causes
particular
parts of the plant to basically collapse and decline
and die. It can either be dealt with by pruning away those affected portions
and the plant will probably
recover and survive, but if you plant the plant a bit deeper
it tends to help the plant overcome this particular problem. Also
the other thing about clematis, there's an old saying, "top in the sun,
roots in the shade." So when you're planting a clematis,make sure the top, there's plenty of sun,
but the roots stay cool and moist, so you might wanna plant some place where
the roots will get shaded, plant perhaps a groundcover around there, to
protect the soil and keep the roots cool and moist
and to make sure you have no problem growing clematis. It's a matter of
proper planting, proper siting, paying attention to pruning details,
when it comes time to clean up the plant based upon what group it's in, one two or three.